Mohamed Keita

Mohamed Keita is advocacy coordinator for CPJ's Africa Program. Keita has written about independent journalism and development in sub-Saharan Africa for publications including The New York Times and Africa Review, and has appeared on NPR, the BBC, Al-Jazeera, and Radio France Internationale. Keita has also given presentations on press freedom at the World Bank, U.S. State Department, and universities. Follow him on Twitter: @africamedia_CPJ.

In 1968, Andrei
Sakharov braved censorship and personal risk in the Soviet Union to give
humanity an honest and timeless
declaration of conscience. That same year, Ethiopia's most prominent dissenter,
Eskinder Nega, was born. In January 1981, a year into Sakharov's exile in the
closed city of Gorky, Reeyot Alemu, another fierce, Ethiopian free thinker, was
born.

Journalist Lohé Issa Konaté has been imprisoned in Burkina
Faso since he was convicted
in October of criminal defamation over articles in private weekly L'Ouragan alleging corruption and abuse
of power at the office of the public prosecutor. In May, an appeals court rejected
his appeal and upheld the 12-month sentence, according to defense counsel
Halidou Ouedraogo. Now, after exhausting all domestic legal remedies, Konaté has
filed a complaint with the African
Court on Human and Peoples' Rights in Tanzania.

In Burkina Faso, tens of journalists from state media today
held a sit-in in front of the Ministry of Communications in the capital
Ouagadougou to protest what they deem to be excessive government censorship of
news coverage.

Burundi's government took unusually swift action last week
in response to the police shooting of a radio reporter, after the journalist
sought information at a roadblock in the capital Bujumbura where market vendors
were allegedly being "taxed" for passage. Perhaps the shooting could have been
averted if authorities had bothered to discipline officers involved in previous
attacks on journalists.

Beatrice
Mtetwa, a tenacious lawyer who has won accolades for stubbornly defending journalists and others persecuted by Robert Mugabe's regime in Zimbabwe, regained her
freedom today after a hellish week that began on March 17 when she was arrested
and charged with the criminal offense of "defeating or obstructing the course
of justice."

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Eritrean Information Minister Ali Abdu Ahmed, government spokesman
and censor-in-chief of the Red Sea nation, has been invisible in the past few
weeks. The total absence of any independent press in Eritrea has allowed the
government to maintain complete silence in the face of mounting questions and
surging Internet rumors of his defection.

It was on November 17 that U.K.-based Eritrean opposition news
website Assena first reported,
citing unnamed sources, that Ali had sought asylum in Canada. Ten days later, Madote, a pro-government site, dismissed
the Assena report and claimed, citing
unnamed witnesses who reported by phone, that Ali was "seen walking in the
capital and discussing with citizens."

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Ethiopians awakened this morning to state
media reports that Prime
Minister Meles Zenawi, 57, the country's leader for 21 years, had died late
Monday in an overseas hospital of an undisclosed disease. Within seconds, Ethiopians
spread the news on social
media;
within minutes, international news media were issuing bulletins. Finally, after
weeks of government silence and obfuscation over Meles' health, there was
clarity for Ethiopians anxious for word about their leader. Still, it was left
to unnamed sources to fill in even the basic details. Meles died in a Brussels
hospital of liver cancer, these sources told international news organizations,
and he had been ill for many months.

"Death of yet another African leader highlights secrecy & lack of transparency when it comes to ailing leaders," CNN's Faith Karimi noted on Twitter, where the hashtag #MelesZenawi was trending globally.

On Wednesday, the same day the White
House announced a strategic plan committing the United States to elevating its efforts in "challenging leaders whose actions threaten the
credibility of democratic processes" in sub-Saharan Africa, a senior
member of the U.S. Congress challenged the
erosion of press freedom in a key U.S. strategic partner in the Horn of Africa:
Ethiopia.

South African journalist and arts critic Charl Blignaut made
what turned out to be an excellent prediction. "Of all the work on show, it's
this depiction of the president that will set the most tongues wagging and most
likely generate some howls of disapproval," he wrote on May 13 in a review of
an art exhibition in Johannesburg.

Two members of the U.S. Congress, a
Republican and a Democrat, have publicly voiced indignation at Ethiopia's persecution of
journalists
under the leadership of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, with both declaring that
stability and security are enhanced by press freedom.